Friday, April 13, 2012

How Does My Garden Grow? How Does the Church Grow? How Do Book Sales Grow?

I have been keeping the plants pruned. Someone told me that the plants only needed a few leaves to receive the sun and produce the fruit. Too many leaves and energy goes into the leaves, not the fruit (and by fruit, I mean the squash, eggplants, and tomatoes—and they are all fruits, btw). For our garden, Carl and I added the soil, planted the seeds, and kept the plants watered. But I did one more thing to increase the yield (hopefully) and that was to prune.

I started thinking about the words of Paul. We may plant the seeds, we may water, yet God gives the increase. How? By sending the sun. The leaves from the plants take the sun’s energy to produce the fruit. We must do our jobs of planting, watering, and pruning. And, then, it’s up to God.

And, then, once the fruit is formed, we must remove it from the plant so that more fruit may be produced. Fruit that clings to the plant will keep other fruit from growing.

Church keepers (our leaders) must also prune to produce the greatest yield. That’s their job, along with the planting and watering. And, they need to figure out the most effective ways of doing so by studying God’s word. Also, they need to harvest the fruit—send the fruit out to produce more of its kind.

And this got me to thinking. My family has been trying to “prune” me lately. I fought off the attempts for a while but have finally realized it’s for my own good. I have too many leaves and must say goodbye to many of them.

I’m unsubscribing from some groups I belong to—the ones that are not producing fruit. I’m limiting my time to those “leaves” that I feel, right now, are fruit producers.

A fruit I produced was my book. As many know, I self published Thundersnow, and I’m so thankful I did. It has been so rewarding. I have since worked on promoting it. Now, it’s time to pluck the fruit. It cannot remain on the vine and keep other fruit from forming.

Thundersnow has gone out to people across the United States, and I have received positive feedback from those who have read it. I have many people working on my behalf (and I thank you!). It is so much like a child who you do your best for. The day comes when you have to let go and let the Sun do the rest.

Besides letting go of my fruit, I’m also pruning--unsubscribing from groups and also severely limiting my time online. By doing so, hopefully the Sun will help me produce more fruit.

I will still continue my blog for I pray it is one leaf that helps produce fruit!

2 comments:

I understand your pruning. I must do the same. It is too easy to be tied up with unfruitful activities and endeavors which eat away at time spent in other pursuits. Here's to pruning, however painful it might be.